


Hinata's Guide to Ignoring Gravity and Flying

by ErinNovelist



Series: how the setter fell for his spiker (and everything after) [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, Gen, Getting Back Together, Humor, Idiots in Love, M/M, Pining Hinata Shouyou, Post-Break Up, Post-Canon, Volleyball
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24930637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinNovelist/pseuds/ErinNovelist
Summary: Even though Hinata begrudgingly accepted a position with Sendai University, in his dreams, it’s the broad horizon of Tokyo in front of him, a volleyball tucked under his arm, and the warm weight of Kageyama pressed against his back as they prepare to take on the world.He’s never dreamt of Brazil.(Apparently, though, it’s dreamt of him.)
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou & Kageyama Tobio, Hinata Shouyou & Miya Atsumu, Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Series: how the setter fell for his spiker (and everything after) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1110132
Comments: 6
Kudos: 54





	Hinata's Guide to Ignoring Gravity and Flying

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome, welcome to my sequel to my first fic. However, it can be read as a stand-alone so long as you know that Hinata and Kageyama were together for a short time before Hinata left for Brazil.
> 
> This will be a multi-chapter that tries to follow canon but ultimately divulges to post-canon and the Olympics.

There’s a story that Hinata likes to tell the other players that he  _ knows _ pisses Kageyama off: how the setter fell in love with the spiker.

If you ask Kageyama how it happened, he mumbles some poetic shit about gravity and Hinata, and the other players simply stare at him in confusion, trying to figure out  _ exactly _ what their setter means by that. Hinata doesn’t understand what’s so confusing about it—it just means that Kageyama thinks Hinata looks pretty when he spikes.

But he also gets why people can’t grasp it. Kageyama overthinks everything, including falling in love.

For Hinata Shouyou though, falling in love was the easy part—everything that came after is what caused those long sleepless nights, the practices spent pining, and all the times he cursed stupid boys with stupid hair with stupid smiles. It’s fitting, though, for someone like Hinata, who was born with an innate sense of physics and how to defy it. Falling in love is difficult because there’s a certain trick to it, where you have to overcome forces to make the jump, but once you do, all you have left is to fall.

Hinata prefers to ignore gravity altogether though, choosing to love Kageyama unconditionally, …and then not do a  _ damn _ thing about it.

“Things don’t just happen, Hinata,” he remembers Daichi telling him during his first year on the Karasuno court when he was melancholic about his receiving abilities. “You have to work for it or else it’ll never come true.”

At the time, Hinata had been fourteen and so sure of himself, even as he struggled with volleyball and coming into his own. He couldn’t equate hard work and practice to real life. It wasn’t until he was standing in the gym with Kageyama after they had won Nationals as third years, and he kissed the setter for the first time, that everything else fell into place.

_ I’m going to love you forever _ , Hinata promises himself.  _ Just try to stop me _ .

Challenges are nothing in Hinata’s eyes because he’s destined to spend his whole life fighting, whether it’s for those last few centimeters at the net or for Kageyama to kiss him. It’s what he’s committed to, and he can’t back down when things are just getting started.

But then comes the phone call.

(Hinata knows how their story ends—the exact same way it began: two strangers walking away from the best thing that ever happened to them.)

*

Coach Ukai pulls him to the side during practice in the middle of their second year. Sweat-tangled hair and blazing eyes, Hinata listens eagerly as Ukai explains his training program, incorporating beach volleyball into the regime in efforts to hone his all-around skills.

He clenches his hands into tight fists in front of him, a bright smile taking over. “Where can I get more information? When can I start? Are you going to teach me too? Where do I practice? What—?”

“Coach Washijo called,” Ukai says, setting a hand on the spiker’s shoulder to calm him. “He has someone he wants you to meet. We can head over on Saturday if you have free time—”

“Yes,” Hinata interjects.

Ukai presses his lips into a thin line, shaking his head. His eyes glimmer with amusement. “You don’t even know what it’s about.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Hinata tells him because it never does. It never will.

It’s like Kageyama always says: volleyball is all that matters.

Ukai laughs. “Okay, I’ll call him back. Be here bright and early before Saturday practice.”

Hinata nods frantically, watching his coach walk away before punching the air in victory. This might be the opportunity he needs to pull ahead, to be better and make history, to do the things that Kageyama makes him dream about.

The thought of Kageyama makes his insides squirm. He doesn’t know why though.

Kageyama is already soaring, and Hinata still has to learn to fly.

*

Life has always been fast-paced, measured in small increments that build to a booming crescendo. It’s the span of blinks and heart beats, of breaths and bangs—all things that run together, overlapping and falling in huge leaps and lunges. Until the only discernible thing left is a rush of noise that every single thing in the universe vibrates with.

This is how Hinata sees the world.

Sometimes, it’s not conducive. It’s caused him problems in the past: taken opportunities before the risks were weighed, aimed for a height he couldn’t quite make, jumped before he knew how far he’d fall, …and made promises he couldn’t keep.

He has made great strides in improving himself though, and it all started the morning he met one Kageyama Tobio. 

Kageyama sees the things between the moments: the pause between your inhale and exhale, the silence between heart beats, the darkness of a blink. It’s the space that’s empty and void but full of the largest potential in the universe where absolutely  _ anything _ can happen. Kageyama lives at the edge of a cliff poised to fall, the second before chaos hits, where the world sits waiting and longing for something more than it already is. He takes what isn’t and makes it into something wonderful.

Hinata wishes, more than anything, that he could be more like Kageyama, whereas Kageyama has always told him to own who he is. Apparently Hinata has always been the one Kageyama can’t forge—whatever that means.

It’s not like Hinata set out to frame Kageyama into a specific type of person or volleyball player. Kageyama has the talent to be a setter in… any setting (pun not intended), and Hinata knows that he will be his best no matter the hitter. Granted, the success they’ve had has been a result of a combined will and drive; a national championship isn’t even the limit to what they could achieve together.

But, as third year comes to a close, it’s the bookend to their story: they jumped, they flew, they fell.

Now, it’s time to land.

*

There’s a list Hinata has spent the last three years compiling of the best universities in Tokyo that had volleyball teams. In the beginning, he liked to think it was for his own personal benefit because he had dreams before he even learned how high he could fly. Considering all he’s ever wanted to do was run and jump, spike and score, fight and win, it’s no surprise that he intends to go pro. From the time he saw the Little Giant playing during Japan’s National Tournament all those years ago, Hinata was determined to play forever.

After all, that’s what happens when you fall in love with volleyball.

But then comes Karasuno and Kageyama, and suddenly volleyball isn’t the most important thing to him. Suddenly, his setter means the world, the reason Hinata’s in orbit, and it changes everything.

After all, that’s what happens when you fall in love with someone.

The list quickly becomes a spreadsheet of opportunities, constellations Hinata’s crafted for himself to follow Kageyama wherever he goes.

“These are difficult places to get into,” his mother tells him one evening. “It’s going to take a lot of hard work.”

Hinata thinks of squeaky shoes against the clean court, the high arc of a volleyball as it springs from calloused fingertips, of dark hair and icy eyes with somber smiles that remind him of a lantern in the dark. Hinata thinks of all this and more as he turns back to his mother and shrugs helplessly.

“So what?” he says because he already knows what his future entails: Kageyama and whatever may come after.

Even though he’s begrudgingly accepted a position with Sendai University, in his dreams, it’s the broad horizon of Tokyo in front of him, a volleyball tucked under his arm, and the warm weight of Kageyama pressed against his back as they prepare to take on the world.

He’s never dreamt of Brazil.

(Apparently, though, it’s dreamt of him.)

*

Hinata drops onto the steps in front of his house and stares at the sunset that sets the trees on fire, trying to soothe his aching chest. It feels like he’s spent too long swallowing smoke after getting too close to the flames. He sits there, listening to some stupid song Kageyama likes, bouncing the volleyball the setter had left one afternoon between his legs, and wishes Kageyama were here with him.

Love, Hinata knows, pushes you to go vast distances, and even though they both love volleyball and each other, life seems intent on taking them in opposite directions. Hinata will always love the setter more than the sport, even if Kageyama will never be able to return the same sentiment, but….

But sometimes choices are made long before you realize them.

Kageyama will always choose volleyball. Hinata will always choose him. If he wants to start being more like the setter, perhaps this is the choice he must make.

He spent all afternoon talking to his mother after the coach from Brazil called. Lucio Kato is exactly what Coach Washijo said—everything and more—and the promises he’s making would allow Hinata to hold his own in the professional leagues. It’s been his dream since the Little Giant, way before Karasuno and Kageyama, when the only thing that mattered was having a volleyball in hand and a reason to jump.

If he wants, Hinata can be on a plane to Brazil come summer, pursuing different training in a different place with different faces as he tries different paces.

He wouldn’t go to Tokyo for university. He’d leave Japan. He’d be away from Kageyama.

_ If I want to play _ , Hinata thinks to himself.  _ Then this would be my best chance. _

_ Come to Brazil. I’ll make you a champion _ . Lucio Kato promised him.  _ I’ll give you a fighting chance, Shouyou. _

He remembers just after Nationals during their second year, when he’d sat next to Kageyama and thought about their future. The setter had asked him what he was doing after high school, and all the spiker could mumble about was uncertainties being so full of them himself. At the time, Hinata was trying to figure out how to approach his feelings for Kageyama and how to become a better volleyball player so they could win the next year.

“I haven’t really thought about after high school,” Hinata said to him. “That’s a long way away.”

“You’ve got to know where you’re going, dumbass,” Kageyama told him.

So Hinata asked him where he was planning to go because he has a habit of following the setter anywhere, and Kageyama’s answer was simple. “Wherever I can play volleyball.”

_ Perhaps this time around, _ Hinata wonders as he sits on those stupid steps,  _ it really is that simple _ .

He wonders what Kageyama would do—what he would choose. Volleyball or love?

Hinata stops.

_ Kageyama loves volleyball _ . That’s always been the one thing that Hinata is sure of.

Suddenly, the answer truly  _ is _ that simple.

*

It’s just a few weeks to graduation when Hinata sits next to Kageyama on the steps outside the gym and tells him, “I’m not going to Tokyo.”

The volleyball that Kageyama has been bouncing between his legs pauses as the setter catches it. “What do you mean?” His eyes are narrowed, confusion tinging his expression. 

Hinata takes a deep breath and continues. “You’re not going to university anymore, right? You’re joining the professional league, and I…” He swallows thickly, voice turning shaky. “You know I want to go pro too, and Coach Kato offered to train me.”

“Where?” comes the quiet question.

“Brazil.”

Kageyama bounces the volleyball once against the cement. “For how long?”

“Two years.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” Kageyama’s words are sharp enough to cut through glass.

Here, Hinata realizes, is where he may have miscalculated. He tilts his head to the side and stares at the setter, taking in his shadowed eyes and white-knuckled grasp on the volleyball, the way his mouth is screwed up into a tight expression, like he’s desperately trying to hold himself together so he won’t break. Hinata reaches out a shaky hand and rests it on Kageyama’s knee, can feel the quaking earthquake beneath his skin.

“I don’t want to,” is all he can say because he truly doesn’t. He doesn’t want to leave Japan, doesn’t want to leave Kageyama, doesn’t want to leave this beautiful thing they’ve just started.

But Brazil is calling—Hinata’s dream is calling. He just… can’t let this go.

“Long distance is going to be difficult, but I know we could do it,” Hinata says and clasps his hands together in tight fists between his knees. “I just… I  _ have _ to do this, Tobio.”

Kageyama opens his mouth to say something, Hinata interjects with one more question: “What would you do if this was your future in volleyball?”

Silence lingers, thick with tension between them. Hinata wasn’t sure how Kageyama would react, and in a way, the setter  _ hasn’t _ yet, simply staring into space without a word. Perhaps he’s still taking the time to process, or maybe he just needs to find the right words to scream back I Hinata’s face. Hinata does regret bringing this up so suddenly, but he prefers this per Daichi’s advice of tearing the Band-Aid off a bad thing before infection has a chance to settle in.

“We could—” Hinata tries to say, but this time Kageyama is the one to cut him off.

“ _ No _ . We can’t be a distraction to each other.”

“But—”

“You made me a promise, even before all this. You said you were going to beat me.” He levels Hinata with a blazing gaze, eyes on fire. “So do it.”

It’s Hinata’s turn to ask. “…Are you breaking up with me?”

Kageyama’s voice booms like thunder, even though it’s no louder than a soft whisper. “Yes.”

And that is how it ends.

*

Their split is amicable. They remain friends. Hinata tells himself to be happy with this as he boards a plane to Brazil.

*

Brazil is outside his comfort zone—that was always a given.

Rio de Janeiro is like a firework exploding above a dark horizon, where you’re momentarily blinded colors and deafened by the noise, but you still can’t look away.

Pedro doesn’t speak much, even if Hinata understood conversational Portuguese, and the loss of Karasuno and Kageyama hits him harder than he would’ve ever thought. It’s a bruise, deep and painful, that blossoms in splotches of purple and black across his heart. Keeping up with the fast-paced training schedule Coach Takahashi has him on, the suffocating loneliness, his part-time gig as a food delivery boy, and memorizing the way gravity feels different on sand… It’s a lot for Hinata to deal with.

Even after he meets Oikawa again and discovers a beach of possibilities—he aches for home like a lost limb.

But Hinata made a promise to himself and Kageyama, and if he ever has any hope of soaring in the professional leagues back in Japan, he has to hone his skills and get stronger. Even though Brazil’s gravity is different, it doesn’t take much for him to learn to overcome it.

He makes a name for himself on the beach volleyball circuit,  _ Ninja Shouyou _ echoing through any crowd that knows the feeling of sand grains between their toes and the sunset heat against the leather of the volleyball. Heitor Santana even proves to be as great and influential of a partner as Kageyama Tobio once was. The years tick by, in huge leaps and slow lunges, but pass they do.

Eventually, it’s five years after the first time that he played with Kageyama Tobio, and Hinata boards a plane back to Japan, to the professional V-league, to  _ home _ .

The whole time, Kageyama is the only thing on his mind.

_ Beat me,  _ Kageyama had told him three years ago, and Hinata knows what that means.  _ Go to Brazil and get strong, and then come back. _

(Come back to  _ me _ .)

And so he does.


End file.
